High speed high precision ablation from ms to fs

In recent years new generations of precision lasers have been demonstrated and are increasingly available on an industrial level. For example high beam quality and diffraction limited Fiber lasers, Slab lasers, Disk lasers and still Rod lasers are used very successfully. This paper focuses on - ns and μs drilling of shaped holes by helical drilling¹ - drilling of extreme aspect ratios in dielectrics/glass by ns-slab lasers² - nm-size periodic structuring of polymers by interferometric approaches - ablation by ns- and ps-pulses for metal moulds - generation of waveguide structures in glass by fs-pulses.³ On the laboratory scale a next generation of diffraction limited short pulse lasers is at the horizon.⁴ In particular, ps-lasers at multi-hundred watts of average power with repetition rates of several MHz,² fs-lasers at 400W² average power and green, frequency doubled lasers at 200W are under construction. At the short end of pulses, attosecond lasers have been demonstrated and themselves shall open a new domain of interaction of light and matter⁵.